Wheel of Time November Launch. The next GOT or the next Shannara Chronicles?

[TheSword]

So Season 1 comes to Amazon in November this year. Covering half of book 1, The Eye of the World.

Will it be the next Game of Thrones? (With a better ending). Or be a damp Squibb like Shannara Chronicles (nothing against the serious but wasn’t a riveting success).

Having Rosamund Pike as a lead fills me with hope. She’s a boss actor!

 

[Yora]

A Game of Ice and Fire was the current big thing in fantasy novels when the show started. I think it also got people interested and engaged because it wasn't typical mainstream fantasy that people expected.
Shanara, Wheel of Time, and Lord of the Rings are all old hats, and exactly what defines typical mainstream fantasy that people expect.
I expect these to maybe get a few curious looks when they start and then immediately disappear from the radar. They were not selected because someone thought "hey, that would make a really good adaptation", but instead "well, we have to adapt something. Just find me something we can market as the next Game of Thrones."

 

[TwoSix]

I imagine it would be closer to Shannara, just because GoT’s massive success was weird confluence of events that’s unlikely to be replicated. Lots of shows are successes, even big successes, without approaching the popularity of GoT.

 

[TheSword]

A Game of Ice and Fire was the current big thing in fantasy novels when the show started. I think it also got people interested and engaged because it wasn't typical mainstream fantasy that people expected.
Shanara, Wheel of Time, and Lord of the Rings are all old hats, and exactly what defines typical mainstream fantasy that people expect.
I expect these to maybe get a few curious looks when they start and then immediately disappear from the radar. They were not selected because someone thought "hey, that would make a really good adaptation", but instead "well, we have to adapt something. Just find me something we can market as the next Game of Thrones."

I don’t quite get that? Game of Thrones was written in 1996. The books were made popular by the TV show a decade and a half later.

 

[TheSword]

I imagine it would be closer to Shannara, just because GoT’s massive success was weird confluence of events that’s unlikely to be replicated. Lots of shows are successes, even big successes, without approaching the popularity of GoT.

It’s a worry for me. Though Shannara was only a very loose adaption. Whereas WOT is attempting to be pretty faithful I have heard. Of course the long descriptions can be captured in a single glance so the TV series has that going for them.

Amazon I think also has a bit more clout than MTV.

The big thing GOT had going for it (and the worst) was that the books weren’t finished so people were excited to know what comes next. Whereas WOT is finished so that fan speculation won’t be as rife. Of course this proved to be a big let down when the series didn’t get finished properly … so

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

It's hard to say what will happen with this. Amazon certainly has the money, but that's no surety of quality. Like Game of Thrones, the Wheel of Time TV show could smooth out some of the rough spots - the misogyny, the mid-series slog, for example. Unlike Game of Thrones, the Wheel of Time was finished when they started filming.

If season 1 is just half the first book, it's going to take a long time to see the series all the way to the end. That's a long stretch for actors, for audiences, for budgets...

 

[TheSword]

It’s gonna be 8 series, as planned by Rafe Judkins the showrunner (can always change) First book probably does need stretching across 2. A hell of a lot happens and a lot of the middle ones will be condensed. It makes a lot of sense.

 

[Morrus]

I've never gotten into the books, so it will be fun watching this fresh.

 

[Yora]

I don’t quite get that? Game of Thrones was written in 1996. The books were made popular by the TV show a decade and a half later.

A Feast For Crows came out in 2005.
A Dance with Dragon came out in 2011, the same year as Season 1.
With the expectation of more books coming during the shows run.

The last Wheel of Time book will be 9 years ago when this show comes out. And that was book 15.

 

[Gradine]

I mean, from the production quality alone it seems like to be closer to GoT than Shannara. Certainly a lot more prestige TV coming out of Prime than MTV